User talk:Amorymeltzer

I use the Modern skin — if anything doesn't look right to you, upgrade!

Amory prefers to receive notifications. Please use {{ping}} or {{reply to}} when you reply to this user on other pages. No talkback messages are needed.

Tech News: 2025-45

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

• Administrators will now find that Special:MergeHistory is now significantly more flexible about what it can merge. It can now merge sections taken from the middle of the history of the source (rather than only the start) and insert revisions anywhere in the history of the destination page (rather than only the start). [1]
• For users with "Automatically subscribe to topics" enabled in their preferences, starting a new topic or adding a reply to an existing topic will now subscribe them to replies to that topic. Previously, this would only happen if the DiscussionTools "Add topic" or "Reply" widgets were used. When DiscussionTools was originally launched existing accounts were not opted in to automatic topic subscriptions, so this change should primarily affect newer accounts and users who have deliberately changed their preferences since that time. [2]
• Scribunto modules can now be used to generate SVG images. This can be used to build charts, graphics and other visualizations dynamically through Lua, reducing the need to compose them externally and upload them as files. [3]
• Wikimedia sites now provide all anonymous users with the option to enable a dark mode color scheme, featuring light-colored text on a dark background. This enhancement aims to deliver a more enjoyable reading experience, especially in dimly lit environments. [4]
• Users with large watchlists have long faced timeouts when editing Special:EditWatchlist. The page now loads entries in smaller sections instead of all at once due to a paging update, allowing everyone to edit their watchlists smoothly. As part of the database update, sorting by expiry has been removed because it was over 100× slower than sorting by title. A community wish has been created to explore alternative ways to restore sort-by-expiry. If this feature is important to you, please support the wish! [5]
• View all 31 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the fixing of the persisting highlighting when using VisualEditor find and replace during a query. [6]

Updates for technical contributors

• Since 2019 the Wikimedia URL Shortener at https://w.wiki is available for all Wikimedia wikis to create short links to articles, permalinks, diffs, etc. It is available in the sidebar as "Get shortened URL". There are 30 wikis that also install an older "ShortUrl" extension. The old extension will soon be removed. This means /s/ URLs will not be advertised under article titles via HTML class="title-shortlink". The /s/ URLs will keep working. [7]
• On Thursday, October 30, the MediaWiki Interfaces and SRE Service Operations teams began rerouting Action API traffic through a common API gateway. Individual wikis will be updated based on the standard release groups, with total traffic increased over time. This change is expected to be non-breaking and non-disruptive. If any issues are observed, please file a Phabricator ticket to the Service Ops team board.
• MediaWiki Train deployments will pause for the final two weeks of 2025: 22 December and 29 December. Backport windows will also pause between Monday, 22 December 2025 and Thursday, 2 January 2026. A backport window is a scheduled time to add things like bug fixes and configuration changes. There are seven deployment trains remaining for 2025. [8]
• Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

In depth

• In 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation reported that AI systems and search engines increasingly use Wikipedia content without driving users to the site, contributing to an 8% drop in human pageviews compared to 2024. After detecting bots disguised as humans, Wikimedia updated its traffic data to reflect this shift. Read more about current user trends on Wikipedia in a Diff blog post.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 19:30, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2025

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2025).

Administrator changes

Toadspike

• Elahrairah
• Juliancolton
• Magnus Manske

CheckUser changes

asilvering

Guideline and policy news

• The speedy deletion criteria U5 has been repealed, with U6 and U7 replacing it. See the FAQ for more clarifications.
• Community-designated contentious topics may now be enforced and appealed at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard (AE) as a result of an RfC.

Technical news

• You can enable a handy user info card next to usernames, which when clicked displays edit count, blocks, thanks, and other information. To enable this feature, visit Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options → Enable the user info card

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Transgender healthcare and people has been closed
  • Uninvolved administrators may impose an AE participation restriction on any thread at the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard.

Miscellaneous

• An unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in November 2025 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:34, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 November 2025

• News and notes: Temporary accounts go live and WMF board member self-suspends
  ArbCom elections draw close, and Wikimania '27 in Santiago.

• Community view: Six Wikipedians' thoughts on Grokipedia, and the humanity of it all
  It ain't a five course meal, according to one of our interviewees.

• Wikicup report: BeanieFan11, WikiCup victor of 2025, covers the results
  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

• In the media: Jimbo's book, an argument about genocide, and a train of shame
  Wikipedia's new rival, political controversy in Italy and other Wiki-reports.

• Recent research: Taking stock of the 2024–2025 research grants
  $400,000 USD in total funding: what did we get?

• Opinion: With Grokipedia, top-down control of knowledge is new again
  Does it shed any light on particular topics that are better suited to LLM-generation than others?

• Obituary: Struway
  Rest in peace.

• Traffic report: The documentaried, the disowned, the deceased, Diwali and the Dodgers
  You know your man is working hard, he's worth a deuce.

• Comix: Head of steam
  'Sblood!

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:51, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-46

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.

• Starting November 12, users will see a change in the appearance of talk pages on some Wikipedias. Almost all wikis have received this design change; English Wikipedia will get these changes later. You can read more on Diff. Users can opt out of these changes in their user preferences in "Show discussion activity". [9]
• MediaWiki can now display a page indicator automatically while a page is protected. This feature is disabled by default. It can be enabled by community request. [10]
• Using the "Show preview" or "Show changes" buttons in the wikitext editor will now carry over certain URL parameters like 'useskin', 'uselang' and 'section'. This update also fixes an issue where, if the browser crashed while previewing an edit to a single section, saving this edit could overwrite the entire page with just that section’s content. [11][12][13]
• Wikivoyage wikis can use colored map markers in the article text. The text of these markers will now be shown in contrasting black or white color, instead of always being white. Local workarounds for the problem can be removed. [14]
• The Activity tab in the Wikipedia Android app is now available for all users. The new tab offers personalized insights into reading, editing, and donation activity, while simplifying navigation and making app use more engaging. [15]
• The Reader Growth team is launching an experiment called "Image browsing" to test how to make it easier for readers to browse and discover images on Wikipedia articles. This experiment, a mobile-only A/B test, will go live on English Wikipedia in the week of November 17 and will run for four weeks, affecting 0.05% of users on English wiki. The test launched on November 3 on Arabic, Chinese, French, Indonesian, and Vietnamese wikis, affecting up to 10% of users on those wikis. [16]
• View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example the inability to lock accounts on mobile sites has been fixed. [17]

Updates for technical contributors

• Nominations are open on Wikitech for new Toolforge standards committee members. The committee oversees the Toolforge Right to fork policy and Abandoned tool policy among other duties. Nominations will remain open through 2025-11-28.
• The JWT issuer field in OAuth 2 access tokens for SUL wikis has been changed to https://meta.wikimedia.org. Old access tokens will still work. [18]
• The JWT subject field in OAuth 2 access tokens will soon change from <user id> to mw:<identity type>:<user id>, where <identity type> is typically CentralAuth: (for SUL wikis) or local:<wiki id> (for other wikis). This is to avoid conflicts between different user ID types, and to make OAuth 2 access tokens and the sessionJwt cookie more similar. Old access tokens will still work. [19]
• MediaWiki's block messages (blockedtext, blockedtext-partial, autoblockedtext, systemblockedtext, blockedtext-tempuser, autoblockedtext-tempuser) now support additional parameters indicating whether the user is blocked from editing their own user talk page $9 or emailing other users $10. [20]
• A REL1_45 branch for MediaWiki core and each of the extensions and skins in Wikimedia git has been created. This is the first step in the release process for MediaWiki 1.45.0, scheduled for late November 2025. If you are working on a critical bug fix or working on a new feature, you may need to take note of this change. [21]
• The process for generating CirrusSearch dumps has been updated due to slowing performance. If you encounter any issues migrating to the replacement dumps, please contact the Search Platform Team for support. [22][23]
• Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 20:35, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 21

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on October 24. Please help translate.

---

Upcoming and current events and conversations
Let's Talk continues

Wikimania Santiago will happen in 2027.

• Wikimania 2027: Santiago, Chile is announced as the location for Wikimania 2027. The annual conference returns to Latin America after more than 10 years, following previous editions in Buenos Aires (2009) and Mexico City (2015).
• Wikidata recognized as a Digital Public Good: Wikidata became the second Wikimedia project to be officially recognized as a digital public good by the Digital Public Goods Alliance.

Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure
See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Readers · Research · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org

• Tech News: Read updates from Tech News week 44 and 45 including the community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
• Activity Tab: The Wikipedia Android app expands the new Activity tab to all users. It offers a complete view of your Wikipedia activity: reading time, saved articles, edits, and donation history (for known donors). This change aims to make Wikipedia a more engaging experience for readers and contributors alike, while keeping all personal data private and stored locally on your device.
• Tabbed browsing: Tabbed browsing is now available on the Wikipedia App for iOS. Tabs will let you keep more than one article open at a time, making it easier to explore complex topics, follow links without losing your place, and pick up where you left off.
• CampaignEvents extension: Autoconfirmed users on small and medium wikis with the CampaignEvents extension can now use Event Registration without the Event Organizer right. This feature lets organizers enable registration, manage participants, and lets users register with one click instead of signing event pages.
• Image browsing: The Wikimedia Foundation launched image browsing, an experiment that puts images on top of your Wikipedia article reading journey, on Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, and Vietnamese Wikipedias.
• Temporary accounts: Temporary Accounts are now enabled on 1,000+ projects including English Wikipedia.
• Abstract Wikipedia naming contest: The first round of “abstract content wiki” naming vote has ended and the first legal review had begun to determine the 6 names that will make it to the second round on November 17.
• Wikifunctions: Wikifunctions is now deployed across 12 Wiktionaries and 4 Wikipedias.

Annual Goals Progress on Volunteer Support
See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog · WikiLearn News · list of movement events

Digital Safety Resource Center provides tips and tools to protect yourself online.

• Privacy in Wikipedia research: The Wikimedia Foundation published Privacy in Public: Navigating Research, Personal Data, and Safety on Wikipedia, a whitepaper which guides researchers in navigating privacy of Wikipedia editors in their research. Read the highlights and key takeaways for researchers and Wikipedians.
• Digital Safety: The Wikimedia Foundation is launching Digital Safety Office Hours to explore how to stay safe digitally, what does digital safety mean, what extra precautions can Wikimedians take. The first session will take place on November 28 at 9 AM and 7 PM UTC. Check out also our Digital Safety Resources Center to learn practical tips and tools you can use immediately.
• Volunteer roles for movement governance: The Movement governance committees are seeking new volunteers to support essential and high-impact work across the Wikimedia ecosystem. The current appointment cycle is open for the AffCom, Ombuds Commission, and Case Review Committee. Applications for these committees will remain open until December 11. The team will host a community conversation on November 26, at 3 AM UTC.
• Don't Blink: The latest developments from around the world about protecting the Wikimedia model, its people and its values.
• Wikimedia Core Curriculum: Want to learn how to edit Wikipedia? – A new free self-paced course, all in video with subtitles, is available from the Wikimedia Foundation!

Foundation statements

• Transparency builds trust: The latest edition from the series "Lessons from Wikipedia" explores how deep transparency has helped make Wikipedia one of the most trusted sources on the internet.

Other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · The Wikipedia Library · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcacwikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!

MediaWiki message delivery 23:05, 12 November 2025 (UTC)